Strom Thurmond was screaming and the crowd was going wild. "There's not enough
                      troops in the Army," he said, "to force the Southern people to break down segregation
                      and admit the Negro race into our theaters, into our swimming pools, into our schools
                      and into our homes."

                      *Sidebar:
                      By now, you know this quote is inaccurate.
                      The racist bastard used the term "...the nigger race..."

                      Proof   

                      That was in 1948. Mr. Thurmond, the governor of South Carolina at the time, was accepting the
                      presidential nomination of the States' Rights Democratic Party, commonly known as the Dixiecrats.
                      The only reason the party existed was to advance the cause of white supremacy. Mr. Thurmond and
                      his rabid followers felt that the national Democratic Party wasn't racist enough.

                      Fast-forward to 2002. Mr. Thurmond, who was born in 1902, is still with us and, in some execrable
                      corners of the Republican Party, so are his racist midcentury attitudes. He's a hero to Trent Lott, the
                      Senate Republican leader, who's now stuck in a morass of controversy for his recent ringing
                      endorsement of Mr. Thurmond's 1948 campaign.

                      But Mr. Lott is not the only culprit here. The Republican Party has become a haven for white racist
                      attitudes and anti-black policies. The party of Lincoln is now a safe house for bigotry. It's the party of
                      the Southern strategies and the Willie Horton campaigns and Bob Jones University and the relentless
                      and unconscionable efforts to disenfranchise black voters. For those who now think the Democratic
                      Party is not racist enough, the answer is the G.O.P. And there are precious few voices anywhere in
                      the G.O.P. willing to step up and say that this is wrong.

                      Mr. Lott got into trouble last week when, at a party for Mr. Thurmond's 100th birthday, he told the
                      guests with great emphasis: "I want to say this about my state. When Strom Thurmond ran for
                      president, we voted for him. We're proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we
                      wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years, either."

                      That's the Senate leader of the Republican Party speaking. And despite an apology squeezed out of
                      him by the controversy, that's what Trent Lott believes. He made a similar comment in 1980 after Mr.
                      Thurmond had delivered one of his frenzied speeches at a campaign rally for Ronald Reagan. Referring
                      to Mr. Thurmond, Mr. Lott said: "You know, if we had elected this man 30 years ago, we wouldn't be
                      in the mess we're in today."

                      Much of the current success of the Republican Party was built on the deliberate exploitation of very
                      similar sentiments. One of the things I remember about Mr. Reagan's 1980 presidential run was that
                      his first major appearance in the general election campaign was in Philadelphia, Miss., which just
                      happened to be the place where three civil rights workers — Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner
                      and James Chaney — were murdered in 1964.

                      During that appearance, Mr. Reagan told his audience, "I believe in states' rights."

                      Enough said.

                      Whenever I think about that appearance I can't help also thinking about my friend Carolyn Goodman,
                      who after all these years still grieves for the loss of her son, Andrew.

                      One of the controversies that arose during the Reagan presidency concerned Bob Jones University, a
                      religious school in Greenville, S.C., that opposed the so-called mingling of the races. Interracial dating
                      and marriage were forbidden. (The ban was lifted in March 2000.)

                      The G.O.P. bond with Bob Jones was an intense one, despite the fact that a former head of the
                      university, Bob Jones Jr., had engaged in an astonishing series of attacks on Catholics in the 1980's.
                      "The papacy," he said, "is the religion of Antichrist and is a satanic system."

                      Still, Republican presidential wannabes and other big-time G.O.P. leaders would stumble over each
                      other year after shameful year to appear at the school. George W. Bush (whose brother Jeb and
                      sister-in-law Columba would have been expelled from Bob Jones for having dared to fall in love and
                      marry) was among the G.O.P. biggies who appeared at the school while its racially discriminatory
                      policies were in effect.

                      There are calls now for the ouster of Trent Lott as the Senate Republican leader. I say let him stay.
                      He's a direct descendant of the Dixiecrats and a first-rate example of what much of his party has become.

                      Keep him in plain sight. His presence is instructive.
                      As long as we keep in mind that it isn't only him.

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